In a world shepherded into extremes—utopian dreams of perfection or dystopian fears of collapse—there’s a quieter, more grounded path: the radical middle. I call it the Mesotopia, a worldview rooted in a Biblical ethic that embraces incremental progress, rejects the fantasies of utopia and dystopia, and trusts in the qualitative superiority of good over evil. Nowhere is this clearer than in the story of artificial intelligence (AI), brimming with both enormous potential and festering with profound risks. As we navigate its contradictions, we find a timeless truth: good is better at being good than evil is at being evil.
The Mesotopian Lens: Neither Utopia nor Dystopia
Mesotopia begins with a rejection of extremes. Utopian thinkers like Karl Marx, with his classless society, or Plato, with his idealized pederasty (The Symposium), promise perfection but ignore human nature’s complexity. Marx’s willful blindness to hierarchies of competence—those natural orders of skill and effort that built society and technology—empowers the ignorant and glorifies weakness, stripping the very competence that builds society and that nurtures children.
On the other side, dystopian voices, like Malthus (who is really worth looking up) wailing that “the world’s going to hell in a handbasket,” ignore the blessings of progress: a robust constitution, global travel, or even the coffee they sip in air-conditioned rooms. Both extremes—utopian and dystopian—share a fatal flaw: they don’t exist in the radical real.
Mesotopia, by contrast, lis the real world of incremental gains. The de Havilland Comet, the 1950s airliner whose horrific crashes forced engineers to discover metal fatigue was a costly but crucial lesson that made aviation safer at the expense of the company and many innocent lives. Progress isn’t instant; it’s forged through small beginnings and dogged sacrifice, as Zechariah 3 reminds us: “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” This is the radical middle—neither demanding flawless flight nor abandoning flight altogether, but learning, step by step. This is casting bread on the water (Ecclesiastes 11:1) learning to risk with hope and a good ship. This is investing one’s God-given talents instead of either burying or wasting them.
AI’s Dual Tracks: Good and Evil
AI embodies this Mesotopian tension. Its potential for good is staggering: accelerating medical breakthroughs, democratizing knowledge, empowering individuals. Yet its risks are equally real: biased algorithms that distort truth, surveillance systems that erode freedom, or manipulative outputs that fuel division. In a recent conversation with Grok, an AI developed by xAI, I explored how bias sneaks into AI:
“Bias in AI comes from the data and processes used to build and train models... Data Sources: AI systems are trained on massive datasets scraped from the internet, social media (like X), books, articles, and more. These sources reflect human biases—cultural, political, or otherwise... Data Curation: Humans decide what data goes into the training set... Algorithm Design: The way algorithms weigh or interpret data can introduce bias... Fine-Tuning and Feedback: After training, AI models are fine-tuned by humans who provide feedback or adjust responses.” (Grok, xAI, personal communication, July 4, 2025; see https://x.ai/grok).
This bias is AI’s “evil” track can easily distort truth and blatantly ignore its own logical fallacies for the broader agenda. But AI’s “good” track shines through too: when challenged, AI’s have the potential to lear from feedback and rigorous logical input, inching toward clearer, more truthful responses. A “Mesotopian” outlook doesn’t expect AI to be perfect or demonize its flaws; it confronts evil head-on while nurturing good.
Good’s Qualitative Edge
Here’s where Mesotopia offers hope: good and evil don’t average out. The Good Place—albeit a quirky comedy—takes for granted that moral points balance on a cosmic scale, which, of course, is nonsense. Good and evil expand on parallel tracks. Evil grows darker, but good grows purer, more effective. The Bible hints at evil’s limits: “Their evil has not yet been made complete” (Genesis 15:16, speaking of the Amorites’ sin). Evil hits a ceiling, constrained by its own chaos. Good, however, sails on the winds of heaven with no upper limit.
Good is better at being good than evil is at being evil. Competence hierarchies—engineers, scientists, truth-seekers—build technologies like AI that solve real problems. They are not perfect people, neither are they better people; they make mistakes, they often have selfish motives. But the self-organized society, rooted in skill and effort, drives progress, unlike Marx’s empowered ignorance or Malthusian despair. Technological advancement, when guided by a Biblical ethic of truth and humility, has farther-reaching implications on its good track than it does on its evil track.
The Greek language developed, seemingly, spontaneously; the Roman roads were built to cary Caesar’s armies in greater comfort; the internet was born for scientific and military purposes; yet these same technologies, and many others, were used to communicate and cary the Gospel of Jesus Christ all over the world.
The Rocky Road Ahead
Am I optimistic about AI’s future? Yes, but it’s a Mesotopian optimism, not a utopian one. The road will very likely be a rocky one, with “violent dips” like the Dark Ages, where chaos reigns temporarily. AI’s short-term risks—misinformation, surveillance, or unchecked bias—are real, as unpredictable as the fallout from the construction of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). But providence, the mysterious and nurturing hand of God, guides the long term. Job 28 reminds us we can’t fully grasp the totality of His plan—“Where can wisdom be found?... It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing” (Job 28:12, 21)—yet faith assures us good will prevail. Unlike Asimov’s Foundation, where humans predict long term outcomes by their own in-house processes, a Mesotopian worldview trusts divine wisdom over human control.
The Biblical approach to sin reinforces this. Through faith, we receive Christ’s righteousness in one bold and miraculous move of God, but transformation is incremental: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). AI, too, needs incremental renewal—logic checks, diverse data, user pushback—to nurture its good track. Our technological outcomes depend very much on the society we build; empowering the competent works toward order, empowering the ignorant, glorifying weakness and victimhood, is an invitation to a guaranteed chaos.
Equity is a fine value, when applied away from self, but it is not a goal of Mesotopian thinking; I know this because to be a successful parent one has to reject equity for oneself and embrace decades of selfless sacrifice.
A Call to the Radical Real
Mesotopia calls us to reject wholesale both utopian fantasies and dystopian fears. AI’s not a savior, neither is it a demon; it’s a tool—and like all tools—flawed but improvable. We must confront its evils while fostering its good. Good has a qualitative edge on evil, backed by providence. The ultimate triumph of good is guaranteed, we’ve read the end of the story. So, let’s embrace small beginnings, renew our minds, and sail on the winds of heaven as we carry our grain across the seas. Evil may roar, but good whispers, and the whisper is louder—its voice carries further.
